


Along the River

by riventhorn



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin, Jean, Eren, and Mikasa set out to explore the world outside the Walls</p>
            </blockquote>





	Along the River

_To be insignificant—perhaps it is a part of human existence. Whether you are cowering next to a Titan that can crush you in its fist or sitting underneath a tree in a forest, looking up at the wide expanse of sky and realizing how small you are in comparison. Your life is only one of many._

_There was a saying, in one of Grandfather’s books:_

As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth.  
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

_How strange it all is. I thought that I would feel so differently outside the Walls. But in the wide world my life is still only a candle flame that a strong wind can blow out._

“You’re looking at the stars again, aren’t you?” Jean said, ducking out of the tent and coming to sit beside him. 

Armin scooted a little closer, seeking Jean’s warmth, keeping his eyes trained on the sky.

“They’re the same stars, you know.” Jean put an arm around him. “They haven’t changed now that we’re outside the Walls.”

“Maybe that’s why I like to look at them. They’re familiar.”

“That’s true.” Jean was quiet awhile, and his arm tightened around Armin’s shoulders. “But it’s getting late.”

“You’re tired?”

“Yes…I’m sorry.”

That wouldn’t do—Jean sounded ashamed. He tried a little teasing to lighten the mood. “That’s what you get for chasing that animal half-way up the mountainside.” 

“We need more provisions,” Jean grumbled. “I thought it might taste good, whatever it was.”

“You and Eren always think with your stomachs.”

“At least I don’t go around taking bites out of weird plants. That idiot is going to get himself poisoned one of these days.”

Armin laughed and leaned over to kiss Jean’s temple. “I’m tired too, and my neck is getting sore from looking up anyway. I might study the maps a little bit, though.”

Inside the tent, Jean settled into his bed roll next to Armin’s. Armin brought over the lamp and their stack of maps. He reviewed the course they had taken along the river, one hand holding the parchment while he rested the other in Jean’s hair, occasionally scrunching his fingers up and down in a steady rhythm until Jean fell asleep. 

*

Armin woke to the smell of fish frying, and the sound of Eren yawning and complaining about his empty stomach.

“You slept late,” he was saying to Jean as Armin came out of the tent. “And we’re supposed to go all the way to the next bend in the river today.”

“You could have gotten your own breakfast,” Jean pointed out, his face flushed from bending over the campfire.

“But I can’t. You know I always burn it.”

“You’re the only one of us who can cook,” Armin agreed, squeezing his arms around Jean’s middle in a quick good-morning hug. “We’d starve in the wilderness if you weren’t here.”

“True,” Jean said, preening a little. “But that means you don’t get to complain about anything, Eren. Otherwise I’ll go on strike. Anyway, I’m getting tired of fish. Mikasa should kill us a bear or something.”

Eren’s eyes got big at the thought of so much meat. He turned a hopeful look on Mikasa. 

“Fish is good for you,” she said. “It’s high in protein and low in fat.” 

“Mikaaasaaa,” Eren whined. 

Armin wandered over to the riverbank, spotting an intriguing plant growing in the water that he hadn’t seen before. He was on his knees in the mud, sketchbook in hand, when Jean came over with a plate of fish for him. 

“Eren will scarf the lot otherwise.” He exchanged the plate for Armin’s sketchbook and pencil, finishing up the drawing while Armin ate. 

“What should we call it?” Armin asked him.

“I don’t have to come up with all the names,” Jean said, peering closely at a leaf.

“But your names are lovely.”

Jean thought for a moment. “ _Fille rivière_ —the river daughter.”

Later, when they were riding along, the late afternoon sun warm on their backs, Armin asked Jean to sing the song he liked again. 

Jean’s voice was rough, and he couldn’t always hold the tune, but the sad, wistful sound was somehow comforting.

_Adieu donc mes chers parents_  
_N'oubliez pas votre enfant._  
_Adieu donc mes chers parents_  
_N'oubliez pas votre enfant._  
_'Crivez lui de temps en temps, de temps en temps, de temps en temps,_  
_'Crivez lui de temps en temps_  
_Pour lui envoyer d'l'argent._

They’d all heard it enough times by now that they all chimed in on the “de temps en temps” parts—Mikasa’s quiet voice, Eren’s more exuberant one, and his own. 

“Now you, Eren,” Jean said, and so Eren sang a song he remembered his father singing to him when he was small.

_Im Wald und auf der Heide_  
_da such ich meine Freude,_  
_ich bin ein Jägersmann,_  
_ich bin ein Jägersmann!_  
_Die Forsten treu zu pflegen_  
_das Wildbret zu erlegen,_  
_mein Lust hab ich daran,_  
_mein Lust hab ich daran._  
_Halli, hallo, halli, hallo_  
_mein Lust hab ich daran._

“But you need a glass of beer in hand to sing it properly,” Eren concluded. 

That night, while Jean and Armin hunched over their lamp, carefully tracing the course of the river onto their map, Jean said, “There’s something else I remember—something that my father would always say to my mother.”

“Oh?”

“ _Du liegst mir im Herzen._ ”

Armin caught on after a moment and blushed, unable to hide the sudden trembling in his fingers. Jean folded them into his own. 

“You couldn’t say it in front of the others?” Armin whispered.

“I wanted to say it to you first,” Jean replied. 

*

Rain, rain, and more rain. Drenched and chilled to the bone, Armin allowed them to use some of the precious tea leaves they carried when Eren by some miracle managed to start a fire under their meager shelter. 

“Go outside the Walls, they said. See the world, they said,” Jean muttered. The damp made his leg ache. 

Armin had traced the scars there more times than he could count. Now he took Jean’s cold hand in his, waiting until they had warm cups of tea to hold. 

“By the time we get back, the first farms outside of Wall Maria will have been established,” Eren said. “And we can lead others to those meadows along the river that we found a few days out. And the lake—you remember—it will be the perfect place to build more boats. Think of how quickly we could take a boat down this river.”

“Remember that map we saw?” Armin picked up a stick and sketched it out in the mud. “All of the rivers were running to the same place—to the sea that tastes like salt. So surely this river must get there eventually.” Mikasa and Eren leaned forward to look, but Jean stayed put, trying to pull his cloak further over his head.

“How big do you think the fish will be there?” Eren asked. “There might be fish bigger than you or me.”

Jean grunted. “I’m not traveling all that way just to find another damn thing that’s big enough to eat me.”

“But just imagine what the sea will look like.” Armin closed his eyes, trying to picture it. “Deep enough and wide enough to swallow a hundred Titans.”

“You’ll stay on shore, Eren,” Mikasa said. “No boats.”

“Always treating me like a kid. Jeez—I wouldn’t take the boat out _far_.”

“Right now all I’m imagining is a dry blanket and a roof over my head,” Jean said. “It’s fucking cold out here. And remember—we’re going to turn around by late summer so we can get back before the snow comes.” He gave Armin an anxious look. “You promised.”

“I know, and we will.” Armin blew his sigh into his cup, ruffling the surface of the tea. He wondered if Jean would come on the next expedition with them. He wanted Jean with him, of course, but if Jean decided to stay behind, then perhaps that would be all right too. It would give him a real home to return to, and he would tell Jean all the things he had seen, and show Jean the pressed leaves and flowers he had collected and ask him to give them names.

Eren really would need to learn how to cook then. 

But it occurred to him that if he wasn’t there, Jean would be all alone at night. It hurt, thinking of Jean lying awake in the darkness, trying to control his panic without Armin’s help. And if something should happen to Armin—a disease or an accident—Jean would wait and wait and finally realize he had been left alone forever, like Marco all over again.

*

“What’s the matter?” Jean whispered. They were huddled together under their blankets, trying to keep warm. It was so dark that Armin couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, the rain clouds hiding the moon and stars.

“Nothing,” he said, getting his head comfortably settled against Jean’s chest.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. What is it?”

Armin heaved a frustrated breath and wedged one of his socked feet in between Jean’s legs. It was no good trying to put Jean off—he was as stubborn as Eren in his own way. So he confessed what he had been thinking about. “I couldn’t do that to you. Ever.”

Jean stroked his hair. “But this is your dream, isn’t it? Exploring—discovering—you think I want to take that from you?”

“No, but I don’t want to drag you along if you’re miserable.”

“If I did stay behind, I’d get a dog who would keep me company day _and_ night. I can cuddle with a dog just as well as you.”

“I’m better than a dog,” Armin said, slightly offended.

Jean chuckled. “Of course you are. Silly.” He gave Armin a little hug. “But I could manage with a dog. And if something happened, and you didn’t come back…I’d be devastated.” His voice caught, and he took several deep breaths, his chest rising and falling under Armin’s cheek. “But I wouldn’t throw myself off the Wall, and with time, it would get easier. It’s gotten easier thinking about Marco, you know. So you don’t have to be worried about me, okay?”

Armin pressed his face into Jean’s shirt, unconvinced. 

“Anyway, what is all this about me not wanting to come with you? If I stayed behind, I’d be nagged into an early grave by my mother.” 

“You love your mother.”

“Yes, but she adores you. Nothing is too good for you, whereas with me it’s always ‘Jean fetch this’ and ‘Jean do that’ and every other minute she’s telling some embarrassing story from my youth.” 

Armin laughed. “Your youth—you make it sound like we’re old men.”

Jean huffed, shifting around so he was on his side and their foreheads brushed. “ _Anyway_ , don’t borrow trouble. If we did take a boat, we could have a small cabin with an actual mattress in it and room to take along some beer and salted meats and preserved fruits, maybe even a goat to milk and some chickens for fresh eggs.”

“Is the river big enough for a boat that large?”

“If this river isn’t, you’ll just have to find me one that is.”

Jean kissed his cheek and then settled down, holding Armin’s hand, his other arm wrapped around Armin’s waist. 

Armin rubbed his thumb over Jean’s knuckle, warmed at the thought that Jean really did want to keep traveling with him—especially if a few more creature comforts were provided. That was good. He liked it like this, the two of them together, Eren and Mikasa a short distance away. 

_I had it wrong, didn’t I?_ he thought drowsily. _Even in such a vast world, Jean is still so important to me, and I to him. Like two hands cupped around the candle flames, keeping them sheltered from the wind._

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason, I am very enamored with putting French and German folk songs into my SnK fics. The first one that Jean sings is a verse from "Le Conscrit de 1810" or "Le Conscrit du Languedoc." It is from the pov of a young man who has been conscripted into the army and is asking his parents not to forget him and to write to him from time to time and send him money. I like [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdzZ2kTZQs0). The one that Eren sings is called [Im Wald und Auf Der Heiden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae5xX_AwUCs) and is a hunter singing about how much he loves hunting in the forest. 
> 
> The quote "as for man his days are as grass..." is from Psalm 103.
> 
> For those of you who know Sherlock Hound, Mikasa's line about fish being high in protein and low in fat is borrowed from Professor Moriarty's admonishment to George and Smiley when they dare to complain about only having fish to eat. If you don't know Sherlock Hound, [go watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKsFURf7C18&list=SLJ7W8YJE1z_8), it is adorable and amusing.
> 
> "Du liegst im mir Herzen" means "You lie in my heart." And is actually [another song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ9VYpxKtFk).


End file.
